Agricultural extension and input subsidies to reduce food insecurity. Evidence from a field experiment in the Congo

Small holder farming in sub-Saharan Africa is plagued by low
productivity levels and high malnutrition. Extension services aim to
increase knowledge and uptake of new technologies to boost yields.
However, despite the potential benefits adoption rates are still low.
One explanation may be that providing training and demonstration trials
alone is not enough to increase input demand needed to raise
productivity. Lifting multiple barriers simultaneously could prove to be
more effective. We use a field experiment in eastern DRC to test whether
adding input subsidies to an extension programme provides synergistic
benefits. Specifically, in a sample of 64 villages that received an
agricultural extension programme, a random half was given the
opportunity to buy subsidised input packages. We estimate the impact of
the subsidy scheme on knowledge, input use, yields and food security
indicators. We find robust evidence on input use at the extensive
margin: providing subsidies increases fertiliser uptake by 5 percentage
points, while uptake of inoculant increases by 3 percentage points, one
year after the subsidy scheme was introduced. These effects are
substantial given the extremely low baseline use (3% in both cases) of
fertiliser and inoculant even after the extension intervention. In
addition, villages further away from these markets have lower adoption
rates as cost of access increase. Our results caution against
overoptimistic views on the downstream effects of productivity enhancing
technologies and that investments in structural changes in markets are
likely needed to stimulate growth in the agricultural sector.